My Motivation

One day all the employees reached the office and saw a big advice written on the door.
"Yesterday the person who has been hindering your growth in this company passed away.
You are invited to join the funeral". In the beginning, they got sad for the death of one of their colleagues, but after a while they got curious to know who was the man who
hindered their growth. Everyone thought: Well
at least the man who hindered my progress died! One by one the thrilled employees got
closer to the coffin, and when they looked
inside they were speechless. They stood shocked in silence, as if someone had touched
the deepest part of their soul. There was a
mirror inside the coffin and everyone who
looked inside could see himself.

There was a sign next to the mirror that read: "There is only one person who is capable to set limits to
your growth...It is you. You are the only person who can influence your happiness, success and realization.
Your life does not change when your boss, friends or company
change.....your life changes when you
change...you go beyond your limiting beliefs and you realize you are the only one responsible for your life. Its the way you face
life that makes the difference! If an egg is broken from outside force....life ends but if it is broken from inside force life begins. Great
things always begin from our inside. Believe in yourself.
Make your change". You have what it
takes to make your change, Make it.

Merry CHRISTmas to you all

7 Mistakes Businesses Make On Social Media

Social media has come to stay and businesses and individuals who have position themselves are taking advantage to increase their sales why others promoting their brands.

Anyone who owns and runs a business should already understand the importance of an effective social media campaign but there are a lot of businesses and individuals out there who got it wrong.

Follow this as I am highlighting 7 most common mistakes on social media.

#1        Not posting Encouraging Content Regularly

Status update should be used to say something interesting people can engage with. Some 176 million people buy product online each year, so you just need to catch their attention.

#2        Focusing on the Quantity of Followers, not the Quantity

It is all well and good having hundreds of followers, but they are not much use if they are not interested in your business. About 60% of people share product posts on #facebook, so you need to find people interested in your

#3        Not converting followers into Paid Customers

Conversions are very important for business users. Having thousands of people to share your post is good, but you are not going to benefit from that unless they make purchases. Only 12% of people whom see products advertised on social media will go on to make purchases. For that reason, you need to make sure your posts are eye-catching as possible.

#4        Having No Brand Personality

If people think that your posts are too generic and boring, they are less likely to make a purchase. You need to ensure you personalize every status update you publish. For that, you could do with a dedicated social manager. At the moment, only 22% of companies have one.

#5        Spamming

The last thing you want to do is to spam your audience. If people start to think you’re posting too many ‘salesy’ updates, they will simply stop viewing your page.

#6        Not having a strategy

Blindly trying to do the right thing on social networks is not a good idea. You need a strong strategy that has carefully created. About 53% of businesses are currently using social media to grow their customer base. 60% of them will have a planned strategy.

#7        Doing Everything Manually

Posting all your updates manually is going to make a long time. There are lots of applications and websites out there that allow you to manage everything from within one screen. You can schedule posts and tweets and deal with engagements that way. The platforms include @justunfollow, hootsuit,spredfast, @tweetdeck. Etc. Around 18% of businesses are run that way.

 We spend a lot of time on social media. In fact, the average user spends over three hours on social media every day. Unfortunately, a majority of that time is not bringing in a good return on investment. Your time is valuable, and you need to get the best out of your social networks. @nayakjnr

Own Your Own Business Conference 2014

Bridge Of Hope Limited #BHL, is a Human Resource Company established to empower people to confront real life challenges, pose optimistic outlook and take their destinies into their own hands, with confidence and hope to face the future while charting a course to their prosperity.

They have a vision to change the world of gloom and uncertain future confronting, to a world of opportunities that offers enough space for all to give positive expression of their God.

As a means of realizing their vision, they write and publish self-development and motivational books. They have three (3) books on the market so far.
Namely:

1. Own Your Own Business  

                                                                

2. Managing The Pressure of Success and Time

 3. Key To True and Lasting Success

Out of these inspiration that the idea of organizing young people who desire to transform their lives with the people around the for a day of empowerment Own Your Own Business conference 2014 came about.This is the first of its kind in Kumasi.

 This Conference will help participants to realize the need to turn the searchlight for job hunting on themselves, be challenged and motivated to take action, identify the various opportunities within the #Ghanaian system and build a successful businesses.
Be part of this maiden edition of #Ownyourownbusiness conference 2014 at KNUST Campus, Faculty of Law Auditorium.

What Nobody Tells You About Entrepreneurship

Working for yourself is a dream for every young Ghanaian today, but often leads to dissapointment. Discover why and learn how to make entrepreneurship work for you. At this very moment, a significant number of people in Ghana are dreaming about leaving their jobs and going into business themselves.

These fantasies are fed by the times we've been to believe in ourselves, to embrace the 'YES WE CAN' dream of going our own way and doing it for ourselves.
There's no doubt that leaving behind a routine job and becoming your own boss is exciting, and many of those who set off on that path find personal and professional fulfillment there. But in any endeavor, reality is better preparation than fantasy. And when it comes to entrepreneurship in Ghana, the reality is complicated.

Here are are some of the things you don't hear about it but you should. 

• There is a dark side: The sad truth is up to about 90% of new businesses including entrepreneurial startups fail within a few years. It's inspiring to hear about RLG or Multimedia Group Limited but the risk of not making is so real. 

• Passion alone won't cut it: We've heard it a thousand times, passion will prevail. And the long haul, success has a lot more to do with less exciting character trait; patience and endurance.

• It takes Years of hard work to build a business: Many believe that entrepreneurship means shorter hours and more free time. In reality entrepreneurship means building your business carefully and faithfully day by day over a period of years. If there is a true secret of success, it is hard work or more accurately very hard work. Being in business for yourself is definitely rewarding but you have to be ready to work harder than you have ever worked for someone else.

•  To Lead others: You must manage yourself. In the popular imagination, entrepreneurship is just about having an idea. But successful businesses, even those with just a single employee have a great leadership. And the best leadership know, above all, how they manage themselves.

• You probably won't get Rich: Another misconception is that entrepreneurship is a good path for becoming filthy rich. The rewards are many but if what you are ultimately looking for is wealth, creating a business is probably not the best way to go.  When you feel hopeless, you have to be able to work hard to overcome any self-doubt, any feeling of doom or any situation that feels overwhelming.

I have come to realize that entrepreneurship is  not for anyone. But those with the heart of an entrepreneur will always go through making more opportunities than they find.
 

Social Media Avenue For Businesses

REGISTER HERE:  SoMedia Avenue For Businesses

SoMedia Avenue for Business seminar is one of the series of workshops to help train participants about the reality of social media to change the way business is done in this digital age and how customers can be engaged effectively. The professional facilitator will share industry insights, strategies, best practices and case studies with the participants so they will learn what works on different social media platforms and how they can also position their businesses there for higher conversion rate in sales, customers and profit.

UNDERSTANDING MAJOR SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS
1. Setting social media objectives
2. Understanding Facebook
3. Understanding Twitter
4. Understanding Google+
5. Understanding Pinterest
6. Understanding Vine
6. Understanding Google Adsense
4. Understanding WhatsApp
5. Understanding Social Storage (Dropbox & Google Drive)
6. Understanding YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google Alerts & WordPress


WHAT PARTICIPANTS WILL LEARN
1. Understand the digital media revolution driven by the Internet
2. Know the web trends, mobile phenomenon and apps
3. Understand Social Media types, concepts, principles and features
4. Acquire the skills on how to use major social media platforms to power their businesses
5. Learn how to develop quality contents for social media platforms
6. Know how to develop, deploy and measure Social Media Strategies
7. Know how to position their brands strongly in the minds of online customers

Come and learn how to use social media to engage your customers effectively! Call 0243750022 Now!!!

CERTIFICATES WILL BE  GIVEN TO THE PARTICIPANTS

National Volunteer Day 2014

Volunteering: The heart of community development. Volunteer around September 21- September 20-22.

 National Volunteer Day , run by GhanaThink's Ghana Volunteer Program, is to encourage as many volunteer activities around September 21 which is Founder’s Day. We want to see more people in Ghana use the holiday to create, support and join volunteer activities. September 21 or Founder’s Day has been chosen as it's one that doesn’t have specific activities. 

How you can participate

Join a volunteer group or create one on your own.

Gather the youth of your community or friends and think of a volunteering opportunity i.e.

You can see various photos from NVDay, etc on the Ghana Volunteer Program Facebook & Google+ pages. Also follows us on Twitter.

Check out the #NVDay hashtag on Google+, Facebook and Twitter for more info. Stay tuned via Twitter, Facebook and Google+

Once, your event is planned, register here and tell us all about it. We can't sponsor your event but we can help in other ways, especially by getting you more volunteers. Once you register, your event will be added on this page where others can find your event and come support you. More information would be coming soon.

On NVDay, please shares pictures or posts on social media with the hashtag NVDay. We will be promoting all these volunteer events on social media and in some traditional media too. 

If you have particular questions, please email us at  volunteer at ghanathink dot org.

Have questions about National Volunteer Day 2014? Contact GhanaThink 

Source:  Ghana Think Foundation

The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African: Growing Kumasi Konnect (team, initiative and event...

I personally have a lot to share as far as #KumasiKonnect is concern. And for that I can't miss this second edition. 

The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African: Growing Kumasi Konnect (team, initiative and event...: The Kumasi Konnect initiative is growing. When we first promoted it, a gentleman called  +joseph osei  emailed us saying - "My name ... Tweets by @nayakjnr

Decision Should Be Based On Vision not on Sight

Sight is what you see with your eyes and vision is what you see with your mind. Your sight cannot go beyond one mile but your vision can go beyond thousands of miles and even across the oceans. Orphah and Ruth had a decision to make whether to go back to their mother land or follow their mother-in-law.

(Ruth 1:16-18). But Ruth Said: "Entreat me not to leave you, Or to turn back from following after you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, And your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The LORD does so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me." When she saw that she was determine to go with her, she stopped speaking to her.

If you read the passage carefully, both Orphah and Ruth had equal opportunity to make a Decision. Orphah made her decision based on sight and statistics available but Ruth made her decision based on vision and abundance of God. Orphah on a surface had a point. Naomi gave objective advice to her in-laws. Ruth accepted the available statistics but ignored them. She went with Naomi to Bethlehem and that singular thoughtful decision got her to the top.

Anytime you are making decisions, do not base it on current circumstances in your life. You may come from a poor home, you may be extremely beautiful, you may have a limited level of education and you may not be talented. You can recognize these limitations but ignore them and forge ahead trusting that God does not consult your limitations and past before He blesses you.

Anytime you are making a major decisions that will bring a monumental change in your life, make it a point to consult critical-minded people. Let them punch holes into your decision so that you can give a second thought to your decision or improve upon it.


Tweets by @nayakjnr

A group of entrepreneurs to converge in Kumasi as Think Ghana Host Second Kumasi Konnect

 #KumasiKonnect has been helpful to me. It has fueled the passion of entrepreneurship in me. Now I can boast of +DGWeb Technologies. Kudos to +Ato Ulzen-Appiah +kofi yeboah +Rasheeda Yehuza +Nana Yaw Koffo +Clement Achim Gyimah +Barcamp Kumasi +Watson Bedzrah

A group of entrepreneurs to converge in Kumasi as Think Ghana Host Second Kumasi Konnect

The 5 Most Common Twitter Mistakes

Twitter has helped transform numerous businesses, and there are more businesses using Twitter in order to get the transformation. However, many people and businesses are making these 5 common mistakes on Twitter. If you want to know if your account is good or needs to have some changes, read this entire blog post. These are the 5 most common mistakes people make on Twitter:

1. Having a bad bio. Many people know that not having a bio is a big mistake on Twitter, and that’s why few Twitter accounts don’t have bios. However, not everyone writes a good bio. These are some ways to write a higher quality bio with those 160 characters.
2. Not tweeting about your blog enough. The rule everyone has been led to believe is that 20% of your tweets should be about your blog while the other 80% should be about other things. Many people with thousands of followers (and some of these people have over 100,000 followers) make this mistake. I made this mistake until I reached 20,000 followers. I decided to tweet about my blog for most of the day. The result was a dramatic increase in traffic. I did not lose followers when I tweeted about my blog. In fact, I gained more followers when I tweeted about my blog. Twitter is all about building awareness for a blog or product while meeting other people. The more you tweet about your blog, the more awareness you are building.
3. Not interacting with your followers . HootSuite and other tweet scheduling tools are incredible. You don’t have to be on Twitter every hour in order to tweet every hour. There are people who use these tweet scheduling tools and forget to login to their Twitter account. Followers with questions don’t get answered. That’s a bad move, and all you have to do to avoid that is to check Twitter three times a day and reply to your followers when they want to talk with you or have a question.
4. Not interacting with your followers. HootSuite and other tweet scheduling tools are incredible. You don’t have to be on Twitter every hour in order to tweet every hour. There are people who use these tweet scheduling tools and forget to login to their Twitter account. Followers with questions don’t get answered. That’s a bad move, and all you have to do to avoid that is to check Twitter three times a day and reply to your followers when they want to talk with you or have a question.
5.  Not tweeting enough. Many people make the mistake of only tweeting a few times throughout the day. I define too few as tweeting 5 times in the day. In order to get more attention, you need to be tweeting more often. When you tweet more often, you should also tweet consistently. I consistently tweet once every hour (I’ll eventually bring up the rate to one tweet every half an hour). The more I tweet, the more followers and blog traffic I get.

 By avoiding these 5 common mistakes, you will be able to get more out of Twitter. By consistently avoiding these mistakes and tweeting along the way, you will be able to transform your business with Twitter.

10 Ways To Find Cool People To Follow On Twitter

In a social network with hundreds of millions of active users, some people find it very challenging to find the right people to follow in the big crowd. Many new users often get lost in Twitter’s search option as they look for people in their niche to follow. However, there are ways to find cool people to follow in the crowd of over 200 million active users. Here are 10 of those ways:

1.  Search your niche’s keywords in Twitter’s search box. If you search for your niche’s keywords, you will be able to find the people who frequently tweet about your niche. After searching the keywords, Twitter will show you a list of people’s tweets about that niche with the top three accounts. On the top left corner is an option where you can display all of the accounts that tweet about your niche. By using this option, you will be able to see the best of the best in your niche. Those are the people who you should follow.

2.  Use Twitter’s “Who To Follow” section. After following a few people in your niche, Twitter’s “Who To Follow” section will be filled with people who tweet about things related to your niche. By following the people on that list, Twitter will continue adding people to that list who tweet about things related to your niche.

3.  Go outside of the niche. Outside of your niche (
)is yourself. Who are the people that you admire? These people do not have to be in your niche. I have my favorite athletes, authors, and singers. Although these people do not necessarily tweet about things related to my niche, I follow these people on Twitter anyway because I like them.

4.  Follow media outlets. The Huffington Post, Mashable, Tech Crunch, Citi 97.3 Fm and ABC News are four great media outlets worth following. There are several other media outlets that are worth following as well. Following these media outlets will allow you to keep up with the news and possibly learn about people who tweet about things related to your niche.

5.  Follow the followers of someone in your niche with over 100,000 followers. Most of the social media experts will tell you to do this when you want to build a targeted following. However, implementing this strategy will also allow you to follow cool people. The people who you are following are people who are interested in your niche. You can have conversations with these people about your niche.

6.  Follow guest bloggers who write blog posts about your niche. At either the beginning or end of every guest post is the name of the author. In many cases, clicking the author’s name will lead to a bio page where you will be able to see a link to that person’s Twitter account. After you get the link, follow that guest blogger. Then, tell him/her that you enjoyed reading their blog post. That’s how the conversation starts (and builds).

7.  Look for social media icons on a blogger’s blog. All of my icons are located on the right sidebar of my blog. Many bloggers add their social media icons to their blogs so they can get more followers. If you like a blogger’s blog posts, you should click on the Twitter icon and follow that blogger. Then, start a conversation.

8.  Follow motivational accounts. No matter what profession you are in, we can all use motivation. Out of all of the motivational accounts out there, in my opinion, @Sports_Greats sends out the most motivational tweets. The account has over 1 million to show for it.

9.  Follow people who have a conversation with you. If someone has a conversation with you on any social network, chances are that the first conversation will not be the last one. In order to stay in touch with the person you are having a conversation with, you should follow that person. In addition, that person will be very likely to follow you back

10.   Look through tweets about trending topics. For certain trending topics, there are several tweets that will make you laugh. If someone’s tweet made you laugh, you should follow that person for more comedy. In fact, you should also follow your favorite comedian.

Although Twitter is a big place, it is not hard to find people worth following. There are over 200 million active users on Twitter, but somewhere in those 200 million active users are the active users who you need to follow as soon as possible. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you find people to follow through any other method? Please share your thoughts and tips below.

5 Ways To Get More Customers Using Social Media

For the typical brand, 90% of the sales it gets is from returning customers. In the remaining 10%, 9% of the sales come from satisfied customers who told others about you (word of mouth marketing) while the final 1% are completely new. With these statistics in mind, the key to a brand’s success is not getting more customers. Instead, getting more returning customers is what allows a brand to become successful.
 This is the part when brands and entrepreneurs ask how this can happen to them. Here are five tips to help you pull it off.

1. Create a stay in touch checklist. Is there a customer who really enjoys your brand or comes back? Put that person on a stay in touch checklist. Frequently send emails to that person and interact with that person on your social networks. It is also important to interact in a way that builds a strong connection. Don’t suddenly show up to the people on this stay in touch checklist when you come out with a new product. The connection needs to be strengthened well before the new product comes out.
2. Get people to subscribe to your blog. Someone who is subscribed to your blog will be more likely to buy one of your products than someone who is not subscribed to your blog. Subscribers see you often in their inbox, and being seen often creates a level of trust. This level of trust combined with valuable content will be sufficient to make people want to buy your products 
3. Get people to follow you on your social networks. The bigger your social media audience is, the more people will want to join that audience. We have a natural tendency to join the things that are popular. In addition to growing your audience, social media encourages word of mouth and engagement. You will be able to talk with the customers who have already bought your products.  My #Apps  reviews are only there because I asked my followers who downloaded my apps if they could leave a quick review.
4. Have your wow factors in place. Your wow factors give your potential customers a reason to buy from you and a reason for customers to come back. Your wow factors are credentials that make people marvel at what you have done. If you do not have any wow factors, then you need to go get some.Host giveaways, sweepstakes, and discounts. If you can give some of your customers a free prize, those customers will share it with their friends. Word of mouth will allow your message to spread and make the 9% of the customer pie larger. In addition, your product will get some extra exposure, and some of the people who did not win the sweepstakes or get the giveaway award will end up buying the product anyway. In addition to hosting giveaways and sweepstakes, you need to have discounts in place. 
5. Lowering the price of your product will result in a higher volume of sales, and some of the customers who already bought one of your products will get attracted by the discount.If you are able to master the process of getting returning customers, then your brand will thrive. There is no such thing as overnight success, but as you get more customers, the numbers in the customer pie will get larger. Right now, 90% of your customers may only refer to nine people, but if you implement these tactics, 90% of your customers may eventually be able to mean thousands. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional tips to get more returning customers? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

Destroying Ghana: LOYALTY TO YOUR PERSONAL INCOMES - DESTROYING GHAN...

Destroying Ghana: LOYALTY TO YOUR PERSONAL INCOMES - DESTROYING GHAN...: Loyalty to a political party is not loyalty to a nation. It could actually lead to destroying the nation. And most certainly loyalty to your...

TELL THE NEXT GENERATION

From the past ten (10)years, Ghana has been giving birth to categories of people, some I describe as 'THE EVIL SPIES OF DESTINY' and the other 'DESTINY SHAPERS'. Each of these groups claim to be celebrity that people from all spheres should celebrate them for their work done.
The Evil spies of destiny are those who speaks fear into the lives of people around them. They are destiny destroyers, destiny kidnappers, and evil spies. They always try to influence their generation negatively and kill dreams of passionate young men and women therein. Such people are all over. They claim to be celebrities.

The Destiny shapers, are men who are masters of their thought, the molders of characters, makers and shapers of conditions, environment and destinies. Their creative powers commands hidden soil and seeds of their beings out of which circumstances grow. They then becomes the rightful masters of others. Such people are all over.They claim to be celebrities.

The question then is, who is a celebrity? Are they the politicians who are so obsessed by corruption? Our Comedians who stands on bigger platforms and talk about weed and profanity? Our musicians who insult their colleagues through their songs? Our dancers of Azonto and Alkaida who walks around with their nudity? or Our so called movie stars who displays nudity in all their scenes? They are destiny destroyer but they claim to be celebrities.

Our true celebrities I think are some of the gallant men and women of God across all sects of religions. Personalities such +Ato Ulzen Appiah (Abocco), Regina Agyare, Ken Ofori-Att, Joseph Siaw Adjapong Anne Amuzu, Edward Tagoe, Clement Achim Gyimah, Ethel Cofie, Estelle Akofio-Sowah and many more who are impacting their generation, helping our vibrant youth to shape their lives. They are the true celebrities of our time that we should celebrate each day. I will tell my generation of the impact these people are making on  lives in this country. I say AYIKOO TO YOU ALL WHO ARE IMPACTING YOUR GENERATION. I WILL TELL THE NEXT GENERATION. 

HOW I MADE IT

No coding Experience but I made it happen

The idea is the ultimate, not the money. I have been thinking of how to create an android that will generate leads to the Ghanaian restaurants. I got the idea for about 15months ago, but had no idea of coding and programming.
With all the period of brainstorming, I believed that I can start a sustainable business if this unborn vision comes to existence. Many questions started cropping in my mind; should I enroll in any of the so called #Global IT Colleges? how much fees will I have to pay for this training? How long will it take to complete the training? Self-discouragement began to weigh me down.
The little network I made during school times at the University of Ghana brought Prince Henry Kwarteng (Tech Evangelist) who is now with Google Ghana into the scene. He introduced me to a software platform that I can use without serious coding. Then the idea resurrected. Now I have to two #Android Apps; Gh Cuisine and Tour Ghana. You can make it with the little idea that you have, step-out for greatness.

MISPLACED LOVE

THE WORD TODAY 

Verse: Matthew 22:37

Many things vie for our affection, time and attention and it seems we always need to evaluate where we’re focusing our lives. Joshua told the people of Israel that they have to give their affection and worship to God alone (Josh 24:14).

This was significant in contrast to the idols worshiped by the nations around them. These idols were made of metals and were only work of man’s hand. They were totally powerless compared to the Lord. Therefore, God’s people are exhorted to find their security Him and not in other gods.

Jesus reiterated this in His discussion of the commandment: ‘’Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind’’ (Matt 22:37). The Lord alone is our help and shield. May we reserve our worship for Him.

What do your actions in the last few days reveal about your affections? Is there any indication that you have placed someone or something above God? God is most worthy for your  affections and that  you should renew your commitment with Him. God Bless you

GHANA MUSIC WEEK FESTIVAL

How can we use music to promote tourism in #Ghana?

Our musicians are copying those from the western world. And when you try to copy, it means that you are not doing anything that can overtake the original. So I think that, they should re-brand the content of their songs including their videos to fit the#Ghanaian culture. #Music4Tourism #GmwFestival.

If they will re-brand their songs to fit the #Ghanaian culture, it will attract both the internal and external #Tourism. #Music4Tourism#gmwfestival

FORESIGHT AFRICA

Private sector jobs number have recently been growing across #Africa , but not enough to keep pace with this tremendous population. In 2014, and beyond, African policymakers should make the creation and implementation of strategies to improve employment outcomes for its enormous youth cohorts a major priority. To succeed, strategies will need to be tailored across the practical environments in which young Africans live.
Brookings